Energy policies have always been prominent within Australian politics and the 2025 federal election is no exception. In early April, the Labor Party built upon its ‘cheaper, cleaner power’ drive with an announcement to subsidise home batteries if re-elected.  

“We will roll out our $2.3 billion Cheaper Home Batteries Program from 1 July 2025, reducing the cost of a typical installed battery by 30 percent – with over one million new batteries expected by 2030.” 

This initiative could significantly reduce consumers’ power bills and bring relief to the national energy grid at peak times. To achieve the full potential of a national battery program, it is critical that the distribution network operators (DNOs) are included in the rollout.  Without low voltage (LV) network planning, informed by up-to-date distribution network data, homes and businesses around the country could soon face the risk of increased power outages and appliance malfunctions as distribution transformers come under additional stress.  

Our energy infrastructure wasn’t built with Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) in mind, so it’s not designed to handle solar, EVs and home batteries at localised concentration and scale or the changes in energy production and consumption patterns that accompany them. We have shown that supporting DERs can be achieved simply and efficiently. However, it requires network operators to adopt technologies that give them real-time visibility and control over LV networks.

Learning from Rooftop Solar

Network reliability challenges arose in 2015 as the unforeseen rapid rollout of rooftop solar commenced.  The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) forecast that solar would account for 10,000 GWh by 2023.  A much too low estimate, Actual residential solar generation was more than 30,000 GWh by 2024. Networks weren’t prepared for the impact this solar had on capacity utilisation, increased voltages and power quality issues, and overall strain on an aging low voltage network.  

When asked what they would have done differently, senior network managers said that they wish they had a more accurate understanding of the state of the network ahead of the rollout and that they had established in advance ways to identify and control solar export when it threatened grid stability and power quality.  

Setting Up for Success

To facilitate the successful rollout of additional home batteries around Australia, and to support other DER activity in the future, utilities must learn from the past and ensure visibility over their LV distribution networks to: 

1. Create efficiencies by managing voltage and capacity dynamically to match local supply and demand. For example, in areas where many homes have solar panels, utilities may identify a time of day when large amounts of excess solar generation feed into the local grid, enabling them to adjust voltage profiles and balance network loads accordingly.  Using batteries to assist in the management and operation of power quality issues in real time can create significant value for all customers.
2. Use monitoring to be able to incentivise consumers and businesses to use energy at non-peak times, therefore reducing system stress. Usage data for a given area may find peak consumption in the morning and evening, but a large amount of energy is being fed back into the grid during the day. To better balance supply and demand, networks can provide tariff incentives for residents to undertake high-energy consumption activities during the day and reserve battery capacity to support the system during periods of peak demand. 
3. Monitor transformer health to predict and prevent failures, especially as reverse power flows become more common with residential battery systems. Australia’s rapid rooftop solar adoption revealed critical gaps in grid readiness — undersized, aging transformers experienced thermal stress and over-voltage conditions, leading to higher failure rates and customer complaints. This reflects a global phenomenon where transformer faults are increasing, the life cycle is reducing and utility replacement costs are growing.  Unplanned battery rollouts risk causing similar challenges to aging systems. However, if coordinated with real-time visibility and control at the network operations level, batteries have the capability to respond to dynamic control signals and alleviate risks of localised overloading on the grid. Proactive monitoring, using power quality, temperature and environmental data will be key to managing the added electrical and thermal stress caused by widespread solar, EV charging and battery adoption.  

Together, these factors highlight that the real value opportunity lies in enabling networks, not just retailers, to coordinate battery output to enhance grid stability.  

Some are Already Benefiting

Many leading networks around Australia already have the network monitoring technology needed to create better outcomes for consumers. Endeavour Energy, a New South Wales distribution utility, began to experience network reliability and power quality challenges, partly because of the solar rollout. Its investment in enhanced low-voltage monitoring has provided greater visibility to inform asset control that improves and maintains voltage and power quality. 

Similarly, SA Power Networks (SAPN) has leveraged real-time data to help it make informed decisions about controlling solar exports during peak hours when solar may overload the grid.  

Both Endeavour and SAPN have made smart investments that support and benefit consumers, while also making their own operations more efficient.  

LV Network Monitoring is a ‘Must’ 

Residential batteries can reduce overall supply and infrastructure costs— but only if networks have real-time visibility and control. All network utilities in Australia should be required to have an LV-monitoring solution in place or underway before the rollout of this residential battery initiative. After all, providing reliable, affordable power to Australians is, and should be, a top priority for regulators, network utilities and energy retailers.  

An LV distribution monitoring and analytics system like Edge Zero’s is vital to the success of this initiative and necessary to maintain the health of our national grid as we continue to shift towards renewable energy and DERs.  

Edge Zero fully supports the Cheaper Home Batteries Program and hopes to be part of a successful rollout.  

To explore solutions reach out to our team.